Despite the increases in genitally transmitted diseases, there has been no cheap and disposable hygienic product for the genital areas of persons in trying on clothing. When a prospective customer wishes to try on body wear, i.e., swim suits, lingerie, dance wear and athletic wear, such body wear becomes exposed to the unsanitary conditions of such customer or a prior customer. Women are particularly vulnerable to said conditions. Also, soilage of swim suits and the like often causes store owners to discard the merchandise.
Most store policies, not state or federal regulation or law, require that a person who wishes to try on an undergarment before buying it must wear underwear when trying on the new clothing so as to minimize the spread of disease and damage to the clothing. Such a safeguard measure, while helpful, does not sufficiently protect the body wear because the undergarment is often moist and therefore, can readily transmit many diseases, germs, bacteria, lice and the like. An inexpensive disposable undergarment would be more effective and should be required for those trying on underwear, swim suits, and any other clothing worn next to or adjacent the skin around the genital areas.
There have been two known attempts to provide such a garment. U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,206,412 to Levy and 2,272,830 to Brody et al describe such items. In both instances the garment is a flat piece of fabric cut into the general shape of an hour glass and having tie strings extending laterally from both ends of the cut-out fabric. The garment is merely centered over the crotch between the legs and the two larger portions of the fabric pulled upward with tie strings tied together to form a waist encircling string. Levy makes the garment from an "absorbent . . . fibrous tissue", while Brody et al uses "waterproof paper". These prior art items are perhaps too simple since they do not provide both comfort and moisture impermeability; they require tying of the strings and, furthermore, they are not capable of providing a smooth fit for torsos of many different sizes. Women who wish to try on, for example, a swim suit need the undergarment to fit smoothly around the body so the fit and look of the swim suit can be accurately assessed with the undergarment being hidden and otherwise unobtrusive.
In the field of dressing room hygiene for the genital area and/or soilage protectors, the prior art discloses the aforesaid tie-on paper undergarments of Levy and Brody et al which offer little soilage protection and even less hygienic protection for the next customer and are exceedingly difficult to affix about the body of a wearer. Also, they do not conform to the curvature and contours of the body of a wearer and are bulky and interfere with the wearer's ability to determine how the garment will actually appear without such paper undergarment.
More importantly they are not efficient in use or effective in inhibiting germ transmissions to the garment and do not effectively prevent soilage.
Panty liners have also been used and these are somewhat more effective against soilage and germ transmission only in the area covered by the liner. However, this presumably would require a different liner for each garment and be costly to the customer and/or store owner. Liner use would also make the customer place the pad in the crotch which means that the hands would likely contact the area which may be contaminated and thus soil other parts of the garments.
A few manufacturers of swim wear have provided adhesive backed strips placed in the crotch which may provide a one-time guard against soilage only, if confined to such strip, and this strip can be removed. Of course, no hygienic protection is afforded to the next prospective customer unless removal has taken place.
In accord with this invention the aforementioned difficulties and deficiencies are substantially overcome.
In contrast the invention herein disclosed is thoroughly protective of both the entire genital area and the garments to be tried on. The customer requires only one of these disposable panties regardless of the number of garments to be fitted. The improved panty provides a substantial time and energy savings over the use of paper undergarments and panty liners. Its obvious effectiveness, efficiency and convenience and minimal cost in tandem with the growing public consciousness of the need for hygienic precautions of many types against communicable diseases will provide for customer acceptance and use.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved disposable undergarment for use in trying on swim suits, underwear, shorts, pants and the like. It is another object of this invention to provide a disposable undergarment which is expandable to fit any size in the range of differences of the human bodies. Also, the improved garment is inexpensive in its manufacture, easily used about the body without the necessity of tying, and sufficiently rugged in use with or without the normal panties worn by women. Still other objects will appear from the more detailed description which follows.